Behind the Stars
by cielchat
Summary: Behind the stars is a dark black velvet curtain. There were a lot of black things. The ANBU uniform, blood, the kunai knives, even death. But there were good black things too. Coffee, nighttime, licorice, his hair and his eyes. And the shadows, where we worked and waited. Self-sacrifice… a nameless shinobi who protects peace from within its shadow…
1. Prologue

Three shadows flashed through the forest, easily mistaken for birds. The one in the lead descended to a small clearing, followed by the other two. The shortest of the three tossed her striking pink lock and gestured to her left, face hidden by a porcelain mask. One of the other two, also adorned by a white mask, nodded, but the taller removed a scroll from his black vest and traced a route with his finger. The woman threw her hands up in the air in a gesture of exasperation, but took off again, flanked by her companions.

The forest rang with the sound of steel against steel and the screams of the dying. A group of ninja steadily fell before the three merciless ANBU, hope flowing out of them as freely as blood. The biggest of the three, although not exactly towering with height, flickered from one victim to the next, easily cutting their life away before appearing behind the next unfortunate trespasser. He moved at random, not giving his prey a chance to predict where he would strike next.

The smallest black-clad figure of the trio gazed at the horde of ninja charging at her almost contemptuously, before slamming her right fist into the ground, opening up a deep crevice that swallowed her shocked opponents. Another ninja came at her from behind and she backhanded him, sending him flying into a tree. The petite female ripped up another tree and swung it around, causing it to slam into several bodies that crunched unpleasantly. She massaged her right shoulder where the spiraling traditional ANBU tattoo was branded into her skin, before turning to check on the third squad member.

He was still fighting the strongest member of the group of foreign nin, presumably the one that had been placed as captain. The slender build of his body seemed to whip around in contortions that should not have been possible in order to avoid the enemy's toxic blade. For one moment, the hardened ANBU caught sight of his teammate drenched in blood and slowed, but it was enough time for the sword to bite into his forearm and spread the poison. In the next second, his own blade sliced upward and decapitated the man. He stumbled back, searching the battleground for any other opponents, but only felt the chakra of his teammates rushing towards him.

The woman reached him first, and immediately grabbed his arm, her hand glowing green as she examined the wound. She snapped her fingers at the other man.

"Bring me some water." She commanded, but the injured man held up his good hand.

"The blood on you…" he asked in a shaky tenor, looking at his male teammate.

"Not mine." The other responded, then dug through his pack in search of his canteen. The man on the ground sighed in relief, and then turned to the pink haired medic in search of any wounds. She was splattered with blood, but didn't seem to sustain anything major.

He looked as his own arm, and saw that she had already washed it and applied and antidote, and was now bandaging the half healed cut. Finishing, she reached up to pull off her mask, but his other comrade grabbed her wrist.

"Not here," he said. "Wait until we get back." She nodded and slipped her canteen under her mask to take a sip. Once they retrieved a scroll from the corpse of the enemy and dumped the bodies into the crater the female ANBU made, they took off, becoming once more shadows flitting through the trees.

...

Tsunade was having a rather disappointing day when the three ANBU showed up in her office and dropped the scroll on her desk. she looked up and assessed the condition of the squad.

"Mission was a success?" She asked.

The tallest one nodded. "No survivors."

The Hokage cracked a smile for the first time that day. "I do hope you cleaned up."

"There were a few bloodstains that wouldn't come out."

Tsunade chuckled. "You should go to the hospital to get checked, but otherwise you may leave."

They were out the door in a flash, impatient to get cleaned up and eat something.

**Okay...Kind of violent, but they are ANBU. If you don't know who the woman is, then go read/watch the entire Naruto series and then read this. If you know who two of them are, then good job. If you can guess all three, then review and tell me who they are and your pen name will be mentioned in the next chapter.**

**Cheerio! cielchat**


	2. Test

**Since no one reviewed and only two person Followed and another Fav'ed this story(and the most recent follow and fave reminded me to write), then all you get is a flashback to…**

About one year ago.

Itachi stared at the woman before him. He couldn't fathom why she would want to join ANBU. She had the capability, yes, but she was probably of better use in the hospital than on the battle field. But then, he thought with a wry grin that was hidden behind hid mask, if he were cooped up in the village doing the same thing every day, he would want to join ANBU too.

"Haruno." He said, startling the woman. "You will go into the forest and hide from me. I will give you a five minute head start. Do not let me catch or find you within six hours. You may use smoke bombs, traps, or genjutsu, but if you attempt to engage me in a fight, you lose. After twelve hours, if you have not been found, then you may report to headquarters."

"Yes, sir." She waited, looking at him expectantly. Oh, right.

"Go." Itachi rolled his eyes. Her chakra disappeared immediately, and she vanished, having fled to the nearest tree. Itachi started mentally counting down.

Five minutes later, he was on the trail like a wolf, sharp eyes taking note of every crushed twig or misplaced leaf. Once or twice he heard footsteps up ahead, but he never saw even a glimpse of her. Itachi sped up, confident that he would overtake her easily.

He came to the edge of the clearing and saw her pink mane vanish into the woods. What was she thinking, not even making her hair a little less inconspicuous? Her bright locks could be seen from a mile away, turning her into an easy target on the battle field. She should at least have rolled some mud through her hair. Itachi was at the other side of the clearing in a second, and saw Sakura on the tree right in the open. He threw a kunai at her leg. Her eyes had barely widened at the sight of him before she was hit.

POOF!

A shower of cherry blossom petals fell to the ground. So it had been a clone. Itachi had underestimated her. To the south, he felt her chakra signature spike and become masked again. Doubtless the loss of her clone had distracted her, a potentially fatal mistake.

Sakura felt her first clone poof out of existence, and allowed her second clone to release its hold on its chakra for a second. Hopefully that would draw Itachi in the opposite direction of her real self. She made the hand signs for another clone. Sakura could only maintain two at once, and she needed chakra for another eight hours, but there was a field next to a gorge up ahead, so she could dismiss that clone once it reached the rock. The kunoichi and her double split up, one moving stealthily without a trace, one crashing through the underbrush as if it was dead on its feet.

An hour later Itachi found the trail again. He hadn't seen Haruno yet, but judging by the birds that just flew out of the forest, he was getting close. The trees grew sparser suddenly, and a strange rippled passed through them, in the same direction he was going in, as if it was running away from him-as if Sakura had turned into a chameleon. Looking closer, the ripple was human shaped and moved like a ninja. The woods thickened out again and he lost sight of it. It couldn't have been a genjutsu. Possibly some jutsu that camouflaged you, but it was better suited for stillness.

When he caught up to her again, Itachi sent a barrage of kunai at her legs, but she dodged them and dropped to the ground, sprinting to her left. The forest opened out and Itachi saw what she was heading for. A waterfall gorge led to a lake fifty feet ahead of them. If he could reach her before that-

Smoke exploded in front of him. He quickly jumped to a tree, effectively dodging the kunai. When did she have the time to set a trap? But she was gone now. Itachi looked over the edge of the cliff. Twenty feet below, the water churned from the force of the waterfall, but he could make out a faint ripple that indicated she had jumped in. Itachi narrowed his eyes. He knew that behind the waterfall lay a cave, but it was a dead end. Maybe she assumed he didn't know about it.

Itachi made his way down to the cave within a matter of seconds. It was empty. Watery footprints led to the middle of the cavern and stopped.

"Clone." hissed Itachi. So she had let the clone spike its chakra on purpose. She was good, he granted. But now he had lost the trail.

"Summoning jutsu: Tracker cats." Itachi always felt a bit foolish using cute and cuddly kittens to track people, but the Uchiha ninja cats were as good as or better than the Inuzuka.

"Waterfall, Itachi? Really?" The cat said, disgusted. Itachi sighed.

"Sorry," he said, and transported the cat and himself to the last dry place he knew her trail to be.

POOF!

So a clone had been watching from the top of the waterfall. Well, now she knew to hide her scent. It would be much harder to find her now.

Sakura smirked as the clones memories merged with hers. Itachi with a cute cuddly kitten in his arms. No doubt it was a ninja cat, but it was still a hilarious sight. She jumped down from the tree. It would take Itachi about ten minutes to reach her current location. By then she would be gone, but she had some preparations to make first. She rubbed a strong and sweet smelling plant over her body to hide her scent, then buried the crushed leaves. Luckily this plant was very common, and would confuse them if they tried to track her by the smell of the plant. She set up a couple traps that she doubted would stall Itachi for more than a minute, and caught two fish in the stream and put them on a rock for the cat, which would probably keep them occupied longer than the traps would. Then she took off running down the stream, actually on the water, since water kept no smell or foot prints.

Itachi sighed. It had been five hours and fifty minutes since he had said go, and he still hadn't found Haruno. Which was all very good for her, but he wanted to go home and eat some of the somen his mother was making for dinner. If he found her in the next ten minutes, he wouldn't have to do a bunch of paperwork about how she could be on an Anbu team blah blah blah. But he hadn't found her. Every time Itachi thought he saw her it had turned out to be a clone leading him into some very nasty traps, which, of course, she had been nowhere near. He had set a couple genjutsu traps of his own, but the only one she had been caught in, she dispelled quickly. And of course she had to go leave fish for his tracking cats so that they couldn't smell past their whiskers. Well, Itachi was at the end of a lead that had also vanished into thin air, and time was up. He turned to go back to head quarters, and a twig fell on his nose.

"Did I pass?"

He looked up, narrowing his eyes. The air shimmered and Haruno became visible again, releasing suppressed chakra.

"Yes, except for the part where you revealed yourself to the enemy just as they gave up."

She waved that away with one black gloved hand.

"Time was up and I didn't want to walk back alone. Besides, you had no idea I was there. If you were an enemy, I wouldn't have revealed myself."

"I hope not."

"Hey, kunoichi, do you have any more fish for meow?" said the ninja cat.

**Aaaand I finally wrote another chapter. For some reason I have a really hard time making my chapters last for more than a couple pages. Oh well. Next chapter she gets introduced to her ANBU team. Also notice the new icon. Who does the guy look like? **

**cielchat.**


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